The 2nd Mass is making their final push towards Charleston, but all Tom can do is flash back to the last time he saw Ben. Matt rips a page out of his journal, his will, which he gives to his dad. I remember doing something like that at that age.

Tec and Weaver are riding buddies. Weaver has figured out that Tec is military, but Tec doesn’t want to tell him why he doesn’t tell anyone that. Pope, Hal, and Margret are driving through a terrible green screen. They are the advance scouts.

Tec and Weaver hit a little girl with the truck. She is a harnessed child. She has been merging with the harness, making her alien looking. They decide that they can’t leave her behind, but they secure her in the back of the medical bus. Matt gives the harness girl, Jenny, some food, which she eats ravenously. They begin to bond a bit over her belch.

Maggie and Hal’s truck overheats necessitating a pit stop. Hal goes to the river to get water for the radiator while Pope fixes the hose. Pope asks Maggie when she is going to tell Hal “who and what” she really is, but vows that he won’t be the one to blow the whistle.

Tom is starting to crack under the pressure of missing Ben. Lourdes is still mourning Jamil by taking care of his toolbox.

Jenny explains to Matt a little about the skitter/harness bond. She calls one skitter her “guardian” and one of the other kids her “brother.” She describes it as a big happy family, kinda. Matt tries to convince Jenny to go to Charleston by showing her his journal. ‘Cause we all know, chicks dig boys who write in journals. Jenny’s “brother” Tyler, is clinging to the bus. His shadow is much more alien looking than Jenny. Clearly the harness affects people differently. He is gone when they stop the bus to look for him.

Weaver mocks Marines in an attempt to trick Tec into confessing his military branch. Eventually Tec tells his sob story of a raid gone wrong in Afghanistan.

Margret confesses to Hal that she was a drug addict and spent time in prison for robbery. She also had a child that she gave up for adoption. While I’m sure in real life that would be a terrible trauma, it was not much of a revelation in a TV show like this. I mean once the aliens take over, I think we all get a fresh start. They are now separated from the 2nd Mass.

Tyler returns and Jenny escapes her bonds to go with Tyler. Again, they are keeping someone prisoner who can easily escape. You’d thing eventually they would stop chaining these people, as clearly it doesn’t help. Matt is worried that Ben might also want to stay with the rebel skitters, and that he might die. Tom promises that he won’t die. I think this is a terrible idea, even if it does make Matt feel better. You shouldn’t make promises to your kids unless you are ABSOLUTLY sure you can follow through to them.

Weaver and Tec bond a little more as they reach Charleston. Everyone gets out of the buses to see the glory…they are spending too long showing their faces and not the city…yep. It’s all blown up, completely destroyed. Despair threatens to overtake the 2nd Mass, even Tom breaks down in the scene of the night, but Tec comes and salutes Weaver, showing his faith in him. This inspires Weaver to give a rah-rah speech to the 2nd Mass and gets them back on the road. But then, out of the woods comes a bunch of guys in clean uniforms. It’s the government of Charleston, along with Pope, Hal, and Maggie. So Charleston is real after all. They even have strawberries.

Review

No CGI at all in this episode. I don’t mind episodes that are a little quieter like this, but I miss the bang up action.

The Charleston fake out was pretty solid. It made for a nice twist in the last few minutes.

The driving scenes were a cool way to give more insight into characters, but both of the major revelations, Tec’s and Maggie’s, were not interesting at all. I expect more from the writers of this show.

I liked getting a little more info about the harness kids and skitter culture. More like this please.

Grade

C- This was a very week episode of the show. Character development is fine, but boring character development is not. I’m excited about Charleston though, the previews look great!

Second Watch

Today with Wil we have Maxim Knight (Matt), Colin Cunningham (Pope), and Heather Regnier (writer). She starts off by saying that Charleston isn’t on the East Coast…um…uh…OK. Wil leads her to an intelligent comment about following the history of the American Revolution. Colin has more interesting things to say about his creation of the Pope character. He says that Pope is changing and his reasons for staying with the 2nd Mass have changed from season one to season two. Maxim says that his character is trying to think like a soldier as well as still being a kid. Wil and Heather talk about how they can humanize the skitters as well as stay the villains. Interesting.

Pretty good stuff overall. Wil really kept this one humming.

Article originally appeared on myculturalobsessions (http://myculturalobsessions.squarespace.com/).